A Capetian Dynasty
The House of Bourbon
The Lily of France, Still Reigning in Spain
Few dynasties have shaped the political map of Europe as thoroughly as the Bourbons. Descended from a cadet branch of the Capetians, they carried a modest lordship in central France to the throne of France itself, then spread across the continent to rule Spain, Naples, Sicily and Parma. France is a republic; but the House of Bourbon reigns still.
Origins: the Capetian branch
The Bourbons began as a cadet line of the great Capetian dynasty. Robert, Count of Clermont, was the sixth son of King Louis IX of France, the canonised sovereign remembered as Saint Louis. Robert married Beatrice of Burgundy, heiress of the lordship of Bourbon-l'Archambault, and through her brought that territory into his family. Their son Louis was created first Duke of Bourbon in 1327 by his cousin King Charles IV.
For more than two centuries the Bourbon dukes ranked among the greatest magnates of France, always close to the throne yet never upon it. That changed in the convulsions of the sixteenth century.
Henry IV and the throne of France
The Bourbon claim to France descended through the male line to Henry of Navarre, a Protestant prince and capable soldier who had survived the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572 by a combination of nerve and tactical conversion. When the last Valois king died in 1589 without an heir, Henry became Henry IV of France, the first Bourbon to wear the French crown.
To secure his throne he converted to Catholicism. The remark attributed to him, "Paris is worth a Mass," captures the pragmatism of the decision. Having made peace with the Church, he turned to reconciling his Protestant subjects: the Edict of Nantes in 1598 granted the Huguenots a degree of religious freedom unprecedented in France. Henry was assassinated in 1610 by the Catholic fanatic Francois Ravaillac, leaving a settled kingdom to his young son.
The age of Louis XIV
Henry's son Louis XIII ruled with the formidable Cardinal Richelieu at his side, consolidating royal power against the great nobles and the Huguenots alike. Louis XIII died in 1643, leaving the throne to Louis XIV, who was four years old. The regency passed to his mother Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin, and it was not until the early 1660s that the young king took personal control of the government.
Louis XIV reigned for seventy-two years, until 1715, the longest reign of any major European monarch. He built the Palace of Versailles as a monument to royal authority and drew the aristocracy into its rituals, transforming the nobility from a military caste into a court culture centred on the king. His wars consumed France's treasure and left her borders little changed, but his reign defined European kingship for a century.
The Spanish branch and the wider dispersal
When the Habsburg King Charles II of Spain died in 1700 without an heir, he left his throne to Philip, Duke of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV. Philip V of Spain became the founder of the Spanish Bourbon line, though not before the War of the Spanish Succession had tested the arrangement against most of Europe for more than a decade. The Peace of Utrecht in 1713 confirmed Philip on his throne, stipulating that the crowns of France and Spain should never be united in a single hand.
Further branches took root across Italy. Philip V's second son Charles conquered Naples and Sicily in 1734, ruling as Charles VII of Naples and founding the Neapolitan Bourbon line. A younger branch established itself in the Duchy of Parma. Each house carried the fleurs-de-lis of France, differenced with labels and bordures to mark its cadet status.
Revolution, restoration and republic
Louis XV succeeded his great-grandfather in 1715 and reigned until 1774, leaving an exhausted treasury and a monarchy under growing intellectual attack. Louis XVI inherited both the debt and the crisis. Unable to reform the fiscal system or contain the political pressures building against him, he was swept away by the Revolution. The National Convention deposed him in 1792 and executed him by guillotine in January 1793. His queen, Marie Antoinette, followed him to the scaffold in October.
The Bourbons returned twice to France. The Restoration of 1814, confirmed after the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, placed Louis XVIII, a brother of Louis XVI, on the throne. He was succeeded by Charles X in 1824. Charles's determination to rule by decree and his suspension of the constitutional charter provoked the July Revolution of 1830, and the Bourbon senior line lost the throne of France for the last time. The Orleanist branch, itself a Bourbon cadet line, ruled until 1848. France has been a republic, with interruptions, ever since.
Arms, seats and the living line
The arms of the Bourbon kings were Azure, three fleurs-de-lis or, the royal arms of France that the dynasty inherited from the Capetians and bore on every throne it occupied. Cadet branches differenced the shield with labels, bordures and bends to mark their separation from the main line; the Spanish Bourbons impaled the castles and lions of Castile and Leon. The principal seats associated with the dynasty are the Palace of Versailles, built by Louis XIV south-west of Paris, and the Royal Palace of Madrid, seat of the Spanish crown.
Today a Legitimist claimant in France, Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou, bears the dynastic headship of the senior line, though France shows no sign of restoring a monarchy. In Spain the situation is altogether different. King Felipe VI, who acceded in 2014 on the abdication of his father Juan Carlos I, descends directly from Philip V, the first Spanish Bourbon. The Grand Ducal House of Luxembourg descends agnatically from the Bourbon-Parma branch. Three centuries after a French prince rode south to claim an empty throne, the House of Bourbon still governs.
The House of Bourbon, Succession
The Bourbon succession runs from the French throne through the catastrophe of the Revolution, the brief Restoration and the final loss of France in 1830, while the Spanish branch established in 1700 continues to the present day.
Kings of France
- — Henry IVFirst Bourbon King of France, 1589–1610; previously King of Navarre; assassinated 1610.
- — Louis XIIIKing of France, 1610–1643; ruled with Cardinal Richelieu.
- — Louis XIVThe Sun King; reigned 1643–1715; built Versailles; the longest reign of any major European monarch.
- — Louis XVKing of France, 1715–1774.
- — Louis XVIKing of France, 1774–1792; deposed by the Revolution; executed January 1793.
- — Louis XVIIIRestored Bourbon king, 1814–1824; brother of Louis XVI.
- — Charles XKing of France, 1824–1830; deposed by the July Revolution; the senior Bourbon line lost the French throne.
The Bourbons today
- — Philip V of SpainGrandson of Louis XIV; became King of Spain in 1700 after the Habsburg line failed; founded the Spanish Bourbon dynasty; confirmed by the Peace of Utrecht, 1713.
- — Felipe VI of SpainPresent King of Spain, since 2014; acceded on the abdication of Juan Carlos I; descends directly from Philip V.
Still reigning
The Bourbons began as one cadet branch among many in the Capetian family tree. They reached the greatest throne in Europe by the extinction of every other line before them, survived a revolution that took the head of their king, returned twice to France and lost it twice, and spread their blood across the thrones of Spain, Naples, Sicily and Parma. France is a republic. The palaces of Versailles stand for tourists. But in Madrid, the grandson of Philip V's line still reigns. The lily of France has not yet fallen.